It was not remorse that was in her face; it was not even penitence; it was pain subdued, and a great doubt which it was very hard to solve. But there was no clue to her musing, either in her look or her tones. She took up her knitting with another sigh, when she had apparently exhausted, or been exhausted by that thought, and changed the shawl under Jeanie’s head, making her more comfortable, and looked at her with the tenderest pity. “Poor bairn!” she said to herself; “Poor bairn!” and then, after a long pause, “That she should be the first to pay the price!” The words were said but half aloud, a murmur that fell into the sound of the wind in the trees and the insects all about. Then she went to work again, knitting in the deepest quiet--a silence so intense that she looked like a weird woman knitting a web of fate. It was a curious picture. The girl with her bonnet laid aside, and her hair a little loosened from its smoothness, lying stretched out in the deep cool grass which rose all round her, and shaded by a great bough of hawthorn, laden with the blossom which was still so sweet. The white petals lay all about upon the grass, lying motionless like Jeanie, who was herself like a great white flower, half buried in the soft and fragrant verdure; while the old mother sat by doing her work, watching with every sense, ear and eye on the alert to catch any questionable sound. The girl fell asleep in her weakness; the old woman sat motionless in her strength and patience; and the trees waved softly over them, and the summer blue filled up all the interstices of the leafage. This was the scene upon which Arthur Arden came back as he returned from the house with aid and promises of aid. He had been interested before, and now, when he perceived that Clare was not to be seen, his interest grew more manifest. He came up hurriedly, half running, for he was not without natural sympathy and feeling. “Is she better?” he asked. “Miss Arden’s maid is coming, and the carriage to take her home; and, in the meantime, here is something.” And he hastily produced a bottle of smelling-salts and some eau-de-cologne. “She is better,” said Mrs. Murray, stiffly. “I thank ye, sir, for all your trouble; but there’s no need--no need! She is resting, poor lamb, after her attack. It’s how she does always. But I would fain be sure that she would never see you again. Dinna think I’m uncivil, Mr. Arden; for I know you are Mr. Arden by your looks. You are like one that brought great pain and trouble to our house a year or two since. I would be glad to think that she would never see ye more.” “But that is a little hard,” said Arthur Arden. “To ask me to go away and make a martyr of myself, without even telling me why. I must say I think that harsh. I would do a great deal for so pretty a creature,” he added, carelessly drawing near the pretty figure, and stooping over her. Mrs. Murray half rose with a quick sense of the difference in his tone.